RE: Reference class (was dualism and the DA)

From: Jonathan Colvin <jcolvin.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 00:42:04 -0700

Russell Standish wrote:
> > I'd be interested to hear it. Here's something else you could look
> > at...calculate the median annual income for all humans
> alive today (I
> > believe it is around $4,000 /year), compare it to your own,
> and see if
> > you are anyway near the median. I predict that the answer
> for you (and
> > for anyone else reading this), is far from the median. This
> result is
> > obviously related to the "why you are not Chinese"
> criticism, and is,
>
> Yes, it is. Incomes follow a Pareto law, which is another one
> of these power laws (although I remember a recent paper that
> indicated the rich part of the curve had a different law). It
> may even be exactly 1/x, in which case one's income could be
> anything! However, I'd need to look up the relevant papers.
> Comparing things to medians is _not_ relevant.

Ok, not the median then. I believe, if you plot a graph of worldwide income
levels, you get a semi-hockey stick-like curve. My prediction is that you,
me and anyone else reading this is on the far right of the stick, (if the
handle is at the left). If we accept the DA, shouldn't we be randomly
distributed across it?

Jonathan Colvin

>
> > I believe, the reason the DA goes astray.

> No it's not! Working with actual distributions solves these
> counter arguments (or at least seems to).
Received on Tue Jun 21 2005 - 03:44:35 PDT